HG GTS Monaro

Project Description

Complete rotisserie restoration, Paul's Monaro came to us in bits from another restorer who had already cut the 1/4's and beaver off and replaced the rear frame then couldn't finish it off.

So we took it on and began the huge job ahead, we started on getting the floor & rails structurally sound again replacing the front driver floor and rear passenger floor, both mid rail sections needed to be cut out, new sections fabricated treated and fully welded back into place, the rear LH rail had been repaired but a lot of rust still remained that needed to be replated.

Once we were happy that we had a solid base to work with we started on the repairing the both 1/4 panels, first repairing any rust on the inner frames then using some of the original and new repro sections we pieced the 1/4's back together, all the repairs are then blasted chassis blacked before final fitting. We then moved onto the rear w/screen opening using a repro lower panel we fabricated the rest of the necessary repair section, after fitting the rear screen a number of time through out the repair process and having to cut a realign majority of the opening the end result came out near on perfect.

With the rear of the body completed we tried to fit the subframe and found the previous repairer never trial fitted his work and it wouldn't bolt up to the body, after cutting the repair out and grafting in a new section we got it to fit, then started on the fit the fenders and bonnet, the LH fender was new old stock and the RH needed repairs in the usual spots, the bonnet, boot and doors had all been repaired by the previous guys there we signs of bad prep and surface rust already, so the boot and bonnet were stripped to bare metal and epoxy primed, the doors we stripped the inside edges and rectified the rust issues that were missed.

The complete body and panels were then filled, shaped and smoothed out before it went into the paint shop, were it was polyested and blocked out before being pulled down again. At Paul's request it was to be finished in Acrylic as it would have been from the factory, so the inside of the shell, under carriage, subframe and firewall we finished in Satin Black, with a light body deadener sprayed on the wheel arches and inside the 1/4 panels.

Then all the inside edges of the panels and return edges of the body were painted in the original Mediterranian Blue before being reassembled and aligned ready for the outside to be painted, after allowing it to rest we cut and buffed the whole car inside and out then masked it out and layed down the factory black outs.